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The calculus of caffeine consumption
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Every blog post that took off on Hacker News, ranked by the votes of its best submission. 2,851 posts.
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Netflix Prize 10% barrier broken
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Insanely deep fractal zoom
I was really into fractals in college (I know…) when I was making rave flyers (I know!) for a friend’s parties in Iowa (I know! I know! Shut up already!). Anywa
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First Clay Millennium Prize goes to Grigoriy Perelman
Poincare official problem description
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Do C compilers disprove Fermat's Last Theorem?
(You probably already have realized this.) The reason the compiler produced code that terminated was based upon the fact that the values being altered (i.e., a, b and c) within the “while” loop are never referenced again after the loop. But, once you added code which printed the resulting values it was forced to…
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Galactic-Scale Energy (2011)
[ An updated treatment of this material appears in Chapter 1 of the Energy and Human Ambitions on a Finite Planet (free) textbook , and also appears as part of an article in Nature Physics in 2022.]
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Efficiently Generating a Number in a Range
The vast majority of my posts about random number generation have focused on looking at the properties of different generation schemes. But, perhaps surprisingly, the performance of your randomized a
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Functional Geometry
Peter Henderson wrote an article about a method to describe pictures with functional programs. I've implemented it in Lisp. An updated version of the article uses curves and different shapes and has some references to other applications for this method, like "An Algebra of Music".
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Confessions of a Math Idiot
A blog about computers, functional languages, Lisp, and Scheme.
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A critique of The Black Swan
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Quines: self-replicating programs (2005)
A “ quine ” (or “ selfrep ”) is a computer program which prints its own listing. This may sound either impossible, or trivial, or completely uninteresting, depending on your temper and your knowledge of computer science. Actually, it is possible, and there are some interesting ideas involved (in particular, writing a…
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Detailed review of MIT's OCW course "Introduction to Algorithms", Part I: Analysis of Algorithms and Asymptotic Notation
I just finished watching the last lecture of MIT's "Introduction to Algorithms" course. Having a great passion for all aspects of computing, I decided to share everything I learned with you. This is the first post in an article series about this course. As I wrote earlier, I am very serious about watching video...
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Math Every Day
Math Every Day Stevey's Drunken Blog Rants™
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Regular Expression Matching in the Wild
The first two articles in this series, “ Regular Expression Matching Can Be Simple And Fast ” and “ Regular Expression Matching: the Virtual Machine Approach ,” introduced the foundation of DFA-based and NFA-based regular expression matching. Both were based on toy implementations optimized for teaching the basic…
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Women Prefer Poaching
Men tend to want the woman they see in front of them, while women want the man other women see:
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The Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville (1984)
Columbia Business School. For over 100 years, we’ve helped develop leaders who create value for business and society at large.
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Reddit, Stumbleupon, Del.icio.us and Hacker News Algorithms Exposed
It is greatly ironic that algorithms, the quintessential example of all that is not human, would be so fundamental to social media. Last week I wrote a post about how Google gathers user data. This week I continue by exposing how popular social media websites use algorithms to ut...
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Rutgers Graduate Student Finds New Prime-Generating Formula
Studying prime numbers is like playing the guitar. No, really, let me explain. The guitar is a simple instrument: six strings, some frets,...
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About the origins of the equals sign
From the highly eclectic blog of Mark Dominus
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The Fourth Quadrant: a Map of the Limits of Statistics (by Nassim Nicholas Taleb)
Statistical and applied probabilistic knowledge is the core of knowledge; statistics is what tells you if something is true, false, or merely anecdotal; it is the "logic of science"; it is the instrument of risk-taking; it is the applied tools of epistemology; you can't be a modern intellectual and not think…
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A Life that Added Up to Something: Paul Erdos (1996)
WASHINGTON - One of the most extraordinary minds of our time has "left." "Left" is the word Paul Erdos, a prodigiously gifted and productive mathematician, used for "died." "Died" is the word he used to signify "stopped doing math." Erdos never died. He continued doing math, notoriously a young person's field, right…